


Pray for me

by FreeShavocadoo



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Blood and Gore, M/M, Odd relationship dynamics, Violence, Weird Romance, also references to childhood abuse, another chapter to come, because it is Billy, character introspection, it is Frank, torture references
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-29
Updated: 2018-10-29
Packaged: 2019-08-09 16:05:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16453025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreeShavocadoo/pseuds/FreeShavocadoo
Summary: Billy wouldn't be able to explain his relationship with Frank Castle if he tried. The one constant in his life, the one chink in his armour.Life had always been cruel to them both, after all.





	Pray for me

Control was paramount.

There wasn’t anything in life worth losing control over. An iron grip on control was an iron grip on emotions, a chokehold on the possibility of pain that was so hard that not even a trickle of regret could slide out. Everyone got used eventually, but it was control that dictated in what way and to what degree. He’d had no control over being born to a useless meth addict of a mother, nor any control over being abandoned outside of a fire station in Albany.

_Pretty._

That’s what they all said. That’s all he’d ever heard growing up, not that it ever did him any favours. Foster home after foster home, jealous foster-siblings, furious foster-parents. There was a level of rage that only those in the system would truly understand, the rage of perfect white picket fence parents who could only let loose their extensive fury on someone the world didn’t know or care about. To Billy Russo, fists hurt less than invasive stares and compliments laced with threat. Pretty was not a trophy, pretty was not an advantage. It was a target and a mask.

The bottled rage had followed him around since he was young, that need to bite before being bitten. _Pretty_ , the good Samaritan had said, _let’s play together_. He wasn’t that eager when Billy had decided to pick up the baseball bat and hit him repeatedly with it, a rage so imbued with fear he wondered if he was about to beat the man to death. He barely even felt his arm being twisted behind his back, the screeching pain of his rotator cuff being ripped in three places. Like that type of pain mattered. It was relative.

There was not one person in this world, Billy Russo had thought, worth giving up control for.

Until Frank Castle.

The man was about as textbook as it got, though Billy wouldn’t lie and say he hadn’t made a fair amount of incorrect assumptions when he’d first met the man.

 

* * *

 

 

_“They all look twelve, Frank. They all wanna get some.” Curtis laughs, shaking his head as they look around at the newcomers, the fresh clean faces. “Shit. Remember when we were like that?”_

_“Speak for yourself.” Frank grumbles, eyeing up the newcomers with unease. It wasn’t that he didn’t like them or intended to treat them differently, but it just happened. Their inexperience and eagerness often lead to very dangerous situations, ones which he just couldn’t help but involve himself in. The less he spoke to newcomers, the better. He’d always had a complex about helping lost causes._

_“Ah, here he is. Our resident pretty boy, Billy Russo.” Curtis moves an arm around a rather skinny and now slightly irritated looking boy and points to Frank. “This is Frank Castle.”_

_Boy. Frank resists the urge to shake his head. They don’t send boys out here._

_“Like I need introducing to every Neanderthal you know around here.” Billy replies snidely, eyes so dark it’s like they’re swallowing the pupil whole._

_“Neanderthal, huh?” Frank raises an eyebrow at the kid, because it’d be hard to think of someone that size and stature as otherwise, “coming from the string bean.”_

_“We can’t all graduate to your level of cave man, Castle. You’ve got a face even a mother couldn’t love.” Billy’s eyes give him a once-over, a smirk that doesn’t quite reach his eyes on his face. There’s something oddly unnerving about him, though Frank can’t quite place his finger on it. Reminds him of the dogs at the shelter he’d always go to, begging Maria to let him buy the dogs that sit in the corner with sad eyes and scarred faces, hackles raised._

_“Oh yeah? You’ve got a personality your mother probably couldn’t love, even with that pretty face.”_

_Though Billy laughs, it’s empty and hollow, and in the time it took him to actually laugh it wasn’t hard to see the flicker in his eyes. Like the shadows of a fireplace on the wall, intense and temporary._

_This is what I mean about lost causes._

_“You should probably try lifting some shit before we ship out, Bill.” Frank elbows him in his scrawny ribs, though he doesn’t have a single doubt that the kid would fight with everything but the kitchen sink. Still, putting on some muscle wouldn’t hurt, especially around men that had nothing to do all day but bitch about each other and peacock._

* * *

 

 

No, Frank Castle wasn’t as typical as Billy had thought him to be. Though he’d looked like the archetypal bonehead marine, he was rather quiet and intuitive. Billy had found it almost too easy with the other men in the marines, lying to their faces and never giving anything about himself away, protecting himself by not giving them any ammunition to use against him. But with Frank, it was like he didn’t even have to speak, Frank would just know. Billy wasn’t sure if he was Franks shadow or if Frank was his, but it didn’t really matter either way.

It didn’t change the fact that Billy had known what was going to happen. Sure, when he lay awake at night staring at the pristine ceiling of the apartment his younger self could’ve never dreamed about owning, he convinced himself otherwise. Knowing and being the one to do it were different. Being aware and pulling the trigger were different. Yet, they weren’t. Not to Frank, not to Billy. Sometimes, waking up, he’s sure he can see Maria’s and the kids faces mere moments before they start bleeding so profusely that their faces are completely obscured. No more smiling, laughing or inviting Billy into their family with open arms. Family, something he’d never had, yet he’d been perfectly fine with watching it be snatched away. Of course he could argue he didn’t think Franks family would be in the crossfire, that it was Frank that Agent Orange wanted and his family were just collateral damage, yet anyone with common sense knew that they were all done for. Frank Castle was a huge threat and though they all shot so blindly they massacred his entire family in an attempt to put him down, it still didn’t keep him down.

That was Frank Castle for you. An eternal pain in the ass.

Frank Castle and his uneven nose, longer than regulation hair and always black and blue face, bleeding out in a chair and being beaten to near death by Agent Orange.

Sufficed to say control was lacking in this situation.

The thing about Frank Castle was that the more you hit him, the more you furthered his resolve. It didn’t matter if that was back in that house in Basra that they almost died in together, or in Kandahar when every other man was dying and Frank Castle just seemed to become more alive. The precipice was where Frank seemed to thrive, but of course, Rawlins lacked self-preservation at its highest form because he never felt like he was in immediate danger. That was something Billy noticed was quite prevalent with the rich, finding themselves above even a natural fear instinct. The man got off on inflicting pain on others to the point of killing them, that’s how safe he felt. But money was money, _right, Billy?_

Money was worth knowing your best friend’s family was going to die, was worth assuming he was going to die, too.

The only man who’d ever thought he was worth a damn. But he just couldn’t ever let things be, it was why he was in this mess. Frank Castle couldn’t let things go, it was all black and white to him, you were right or you were wrong. Good or evil. Guilty or innocent.

Billy was always that grey part in his life.

Who else would stare at the only person who inched under their skin restrained to a chair and wonder if they should pull the trigger out of mercy, since mercy was the only feeling he could understand. Love was a word for people willing to be hurt, willing to open themselves up for the world to see and pick at and one day, you’d be left bare and alone. Frank Castle was a prime example of what love could do to a man. He did not _love_ Frank. Whatever he felt for Frank it was stifling, consuming in a way that made him want to claw his own skin off to escape.

 There was something cathartic about wiping the blood from his face, something so familiar in the way those dark eyes stared at him with such crippling emotion it was as if one more second of breathing could kill him. Billy wonders what it’s like to brush lips with death so often it’s almost like you’re begging for your own demise. To feel so empty and void that the only solstice you find is putting bullets in people’s heads and living a life in such obscurity it’s a wonder you can remember that you’re a person anymore and not a soldier. Anonymity doesn’t work when you’ve only ever killed people without a mask, when you always look them in the eye before watching theirs fade into nothing. Briefly, Billy wonders if the deep brown of Frank’s eyes will dull when he dies or if they’ll remain as sharp as they always are.

Seeing Rawlins get stabbed should’ve brought on some form of panic for Billy, some uncertainty that came with not knowing what his future held. Another loss of control. Yet, seeing the fire blazing in Frank’s eyes makes _him_ feel alive again. Maybe they both belong on the precipice. Yet here Frank is being beaten so savagely, Billy finds himself wondering why the stupid bastard missed Rawlins’ heart. One more punch is somehow too much.

“You’ve lost your mind!” He snaps to Rawlins, staring at the bloody mess that is barely distinguishable as Frank’s face. “None of this would’ve happened if you hadn’t gone after him. I could’ve been out clean and _you_ dragged me back into the mud!”

Rawlins’ laugh is deranged, his face manic. “I pulled you out of the mud, gutter rat!”

Billy’s jaw clenches so tightly it feels like his jaw is being wired shut, his eyes narrowed and every muscle in his body tensed.

“Billy, don’t get confused. Men like me _make_ the plans. Men like _you_ shed the blood.” He spits, as if his face is truly about to morph into something even more grotesque and disfigured.

If Rawlins doesn’t think he truly has an intent to kill him, then that’s fine, he can interrupt Rawlins’ plans just fine by himself. Putting the gun to Frank’s head is surprisingly easy, his hands don’t shake the way they do in his dreams when he’s trying to kill the man. He’s not sure if it’s resolve or fear that is steadying his hand but either way, Rawlins’ seems to take him seriously now.

_Gutter rat, huh?_

Men like Rawlins were always ran over by the men who’s backs they stood on to be higher in the world. It was poetic justice, in Billy’s opinion, cutting the ties binding a near-dead Frank Castle to his chair. Standing what was barely even a safe distance away and watching Rawlins inject Frank with adrenaline should’ve been the warning to leave whilst he still could, that even in this state Frank would still be a more than adequate opponent, especially when enraged after hours of being beaten bloody. Yet, seeing Rawlins attempt to take Frank’s eye leaves him rooted to the spot, as though he thinks for one horrifying second that he didn’t actually get Frank out properly, that Frank hasn’t escaped.

Then Rawlins’ is writhing on the floor in agony, getting a beating so savage that Billy can’t even bear to look away. Frank is the one stripped bare now, all blood and gore and unbridled rage. He might have loved his family, that much is obvious, but they didn’t know him. Not the way Billy did. Not when he had bloodied knuckles and a rage running through his veins so deep that he’d shake until he let it out, eyes pleading for help and begging for suffering. It was hard to tell if Frank was more of a masochist or a sadist in this regard, suffering so extensively that he had to enjoy it but inflicting such pain in others so many times that he must get something from it.

Rawlins lets out one last pathetic whimper before going completely limp.

“Probably time to run, Frankie.” Billy’s voice is surprisingly quiet, barely a whisper. Franks head moves in his direction either way, though, eyes flickering to look at him.

If Billy were a lesser man, perhaps he’d feel guilt. If he were a normal man, he’d probably feel pain. Yet the footsteps of homeland security coming closer just kick him into the feeling he’s been thriving on his entire life, survival mode. Frank as usual is behind him, like a giant shadow, yet Billy doesn’t feel threatened. The man who’d lost everything and has nothing, Billy had thought, until he’d realised that really, that could describe them both right now.

_We’re both damned._

 

* * *

 

 

“Armed and dangerous.” Frank snorts, lay on a rather grubby looking bed albeit with fresh sheets, staring at the TV with vague amusement. “You hear that, Billy? You’re armed and dangerous.”

“Thanks, Frank. I didn’t know that.” Billy rolls his eyes, wondering when exactly the morphine was going to properly kick in and send Frank to sleep rather than in a delirious state in which he’s making casual conversation to someone who had a gun to his head only a few days ago. Being in some shoddy motel and looking after Frank like some kind of second-rate nurse wasn’t part of Billy’s plans, yet, he had nothing else left. The life he’d built from nothing had crumbled the moment he’d involved himself with Rawlins, it was too late to go back now.

What Frank is going to do when he’s of sound mind, however, is a mystery to Billy.

“Bill.” Franks voice is quiet and strained, as if he’s in pain, which is impossible considering the amount of morphine he’s had. He stares at Billy with eyes that hit him like a punch to the gut, all at once.

“What?” Billy replies, sitting on the chair beside the bed Frank is currently on, weary and just tired.

“Why’d you do it?” Frank whispers after a long pause, eyes staring at the wall as if he could see something that wasn’t there. “We were your family.”

“I didn’t have a family.” Billy says simply, something that isn’t a lie but isn’t really the truth. As always, Frank sees right through it.

When Frank grabs his wrist, for a moment Billy has to stop himself from lashing out and hitting him, which he would have done had the touch not been so familiar. Frank looks more desperate than Billy has ever seen him, which is an impressive feat considering he’d been beaten to almost death a few days ago and even more when taking into account the things they’d seen when they were still marines.

“You were my family, Frank,” Billy sighs, feeling the weight of the world still weighing down on his shoulders, the familiar ache in his rotator cuff still present when the cold bites through his clothes, another reminder of a past he can’t escape, “not them.”

“They loved you.” He chokes, sobbing into Billy’s hand that he’s grasping onto, gross and violent sobs that make Billy feel as uncomfortable as they make him feel disgusted in himself. It’s almost unbearable. “I loved you.”

“I don’t know how to love, Frank. You of all people know that.” The weight on Billy’s shoulders is almost too much now, combined with a feeling as if someone’s squeezing his windpipe. Nothing could’ve prepared him for this.

“I loved you.” Frank repeats, turning his head away from Billy, his shakes becoming less violent as the morphine seems to dull all of his senses, though the eyes that look back at Billy make him just as claustrophobic as they used to. His eyes drift shut and his body goes limp, Billy half-heartedly yanking the blanket over his battered and cut-up body, full of stitches and blossoming bruise patterns.

“I loved you too, Frankie.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hopefully another chapter will follow but erm, if you were hoping for a traditional romance/fluff story I'm sorry. But I mean, they are hardly a traditional pairing.


End file.
